Pat Rudolph had never pegged herself as the
meditation type. Yet here she was in a weekly,
two-hour mindfulness meditation course with
a dozen strangers.

“I’ve never laid still for 20 minutes in my life,”
Rudolph thought when she enrolled in a Masonic
Cancer Center study looking at the potential
of mindfulness-based therapy to ease stress
and anxiety in cancer survivors. “And I’m usually
uncomfortable in a group. I was the biggest
skeptic in the class.”

The study, led by oncologist and Masonic
Cancer Center member Anne Blaes, M.D., aims
to determine whether mindfulness meditation,
combined with reflection and peer support, can
quantifiably improve health for patients in the
first few months after treatment.

“Patients who’ve gone through cancer treatment
have more chronic conditions, more depression
and anxiety, more general medical problems,”
explains Blaes, an Eastern Star Scholar and
Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in
Women’s Health Scholar. “Finishing chemo and
radiation, they go through this whole new phase.
We tell them, ‘Congratulations, you’re done!
Come back in three months!’ And there’s a real
letdown in terms of anxiety, depression, fear of
the unknown.”

For many patients, it’s the first time the diagnosis
is truly sinking in, Blaes adds—just as the support
network is evaporating.

The anxiety and depression patients face can be
intense, even crippling, and often the last thing they
want is more medicine, she says. “They come in and
ask, ‘What can I do? I don’t want another pill.’”

So Blaes is measuring whether, and to what
extent, mindfulness meditation techniques affect
depression, anxiety, sleep quality, sexual function,
and immune response. It’s part of her ongoing
effort to explore the promise of complementary medicine to enhance the healing process for
cancer survivors.

The study is supported largely by the Hourglass
Fund, founded by cancer survivor and motivational
speaker Ruth Bachman to advance
research in integrative cancer care.

Study participants attend eight weekly, twohour
classes in which they learn mindfulness
meditation techniques, practice at home daily,
and complete reading and reflection assignments.
The course also includes a full-day retreat.

Not long into the course, Rudolph, a breast cancer
survivor, began feeling noticeably more relaxed.

“I could sleep better at night,” she says. “This
calms you enough to get the rest you really need;
you rest more deeply.”

Moreover, the peer support proved invaluable,
Rudolph says, and the group still meets regularly.
The exercises Rudolph learned also have been
“hugely effective” for helping to treat her lymphedema,
a common after-effect of breast cancer
surgery that causes fluid buildup in the body.

And Rudolph, the skeptic, continues to use
the meditation techniques. That’s the intent
behind the course, and if the study bears fruit,
Blaes hopes to advocate for more widespread,
accessible use of mindfulness meditation
courses for cancer survivors.

“Survivors know the limitations of Western
medicine. I [often] send patients to health
psychologists, but I’m not there—and the
psychologist isn’t there—when
they wake up at 2 in the
morning. They need tools
they can use at home.”